


Bring Him

by milokno



Series: Five [2]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Blood, Gen, Horror, Psychological Horror, Trans Jackieboy Man, Trans Male Character, time loops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25202773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milokno/pseuds/milokno
Summary: The rain’s dripping from Jackie’s hair, rolling down his cheeks and falling off his chin. The cold has painted his face a blotchy pink. As he walks, he focuses on the rain and the earthy smell that always accompanies it. Distantly, he can hear the rhythmic littletap…tap…tap… the raindrops make as they crash into the pavement.His eyebrows press together, and a frown tugs at the corners of his lips. Softly, he says, “Déjà vu.”
Series: Five [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1825780
Kudos: 4





	Bring Him

**Author's Note:**

> Heya!! This is the second part of a series I'm writing, though this one can be read completely on its own.
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](https://milo-kno.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> \- Miles

Jackie wakes up at approximately seven-thirty every weekday. On the weekends, he lets himself sleep in until nine. On those days, he’ll end up lying awake for an hour, or so, before he forces himself to crawl out from the warmth of his bed. Then again, on the weekends Jackie’s normally aching from head-to-toe, so getting out of bed isn’t always that easy.

Because as quick as he can heal, which is pretty damn fast, broken bones don’t mend overnight.

He learned that the hard way.

He’ll finish taking his shower by seven-forty-five. As he bathes, he will trace absently at the two scars under his chest. Of all the scars still visible across his body, these two are the ones that make his nose crinkle and his eyes water. These aren’t battle scars, unlike the rest.

When he gets out of the shower, he won’t bother with his hair. No matter what he does with it, it’ll just end up looking more unruly than had he just left it alone. Once he’s dressed, he’ll make his way into the kitchen. He’ll skip breakfast, instead opting for his first cup of coffee. As he sips at the beverage, he’ll promise himself a bowl of cereal or a piece of toast tomorrow. But he already knows that he’s going to tell himself the same thing tomorrow morning.

He’s out the door by eight in the morning— every morning. Well, except for today, that is.

Ever since he moved to Dublin a few years back, he’s been teaching 2nd class at a primary school. It’s a short walk’s distance from his apartment, which is good, considering he doesn’t have a car. On most days, he drinks his second cup of coffee as he walks to work. Today, though, he’s still working on his first.

This morning, Jackie’s alarm didn’t go off.

He didn’t have time to take a shower or brush his teeth. He barely had time to make himself one cup of coffee, much less two. As he walked out the door, he burnt his tongue on his coffee. It’s raining, something that isn’t exactly a rarity for Ireland. He’s already been walking for a few minutes, and what had started out as a light drizzle has turned into a torrential downpour. By the time he makes it to work, he’s going to look like a drowned rat.

He left his jacket at home in his haste to get out the door. He’d decided against going back for it because he didn’t want to get to work any later than he’s already going to be. Now, with only a short-sleeve shirt to protect him from the pelts of rain, he’s beginning to regret that decision.

His shirt, unsurprisingly, isn’t doing jack shit.

In all the twenty-six years he’s been alive, Jackie’s always loved the rain. The smell that comes with it, how the clouds hang in the sky, and the way the water blends all the colors together like the world is nothing more than a watercolor painting. The only thing he doesn’t like about the rain is that he has to get wet just so he can walk in it.

The rain’s dripping from his hair, rolling down his cheeks and falling off his chin. The cold has painted his face a blotchy pink. As he walks, he focuses on the rain and the earthy smell that always accompanies it. Distantly, he can hear the rhythmic little _tap_ … _tap_ … _tap_ … the raindrops make as they crash into the pavement.

His eyebrows press together, and a frown tugs at the corners of his lips. Softly, he says, “Déjà vu.”

As much as he loves the rain, Jackie hopes it’s calmed down by the time the sun sets.

He’s going out either way.

—

Jackie finds his jacket on the kitchen table where he’d left it this morning. The fabric is wrinkled, something that doesn’t come to him as a surprise. He slips the piece of clothing over his head, straightening it over the white t-shirt he’d changed into when he first got back to his apartment a couple hours ago. He’d thrown his shoes off by the front door, and he puts those on, too. Although the color has faded some since he first got them some four years ago, the shoes are still electric red, same as the jacket.

He has a pair of black, fingerless gloves somewhere in his apartment. He spends nearly two minutes searching for them, despite the fact that he doesn’t technically need them. He has an aesthetic, and he’ll die by it.

He ties his mask over his eyes and pulls up the hood of his jacket. There’s a window on the wall across from his couch, and he climbs out of it into the dark of night.

Sometime during his first year of college, Jackie started to notice that he was gaining these weird… _abilities_. There’s definitely a better way to phrase it, but he’s never been the kind of guy who had a way with words. And, yeah, that probably makes him stupid for getting an English degree, of all things.

It had started out simple enough, small things that he thought were odd in the moment but would forget about later.

The first thing he started to notice was how quickly his body could heal.

In his second semester, he’d gotten a bruise. The big, purple kind that made him hiss every time his fingers accidentally brushed against it. It was the kind of bruise that would normally have lingered on his body for at least a week or two after he’d discovered it.

When he’d woken up the next morning, it was gone.

He’d written it off, at first. He shook his head as he glared at the spot where the bruise had been on his leg. Where there had once been a deep bruise, there was only milky white skin. There wasn’t a mark or a blemish. There was nothing to show that there had ever been a bruise on his leg at all.

He’d convinced himself that he’d been drunk, despite the fact that he’d only had one beer over the course of the whole evening. But he was already twelve credits into a degree that he wasn’t even sure he wanted, and he was so, so tired. So he didn’t think much of it. He didn’t have enough room in his brain to afford to think about it, not when he had three essays and an exam due by Sunday night.

Bruises healing overnight wouldn’t hold a candle to what was to come.

Jackie got strong. Like really, really strong. He was just as short as he’d been before, looked just as small and wily, but he could throw a punch and he could do things he’d never been able to do before. He assumed that, since he’d started taking testosterone shots a few weeks before, it was just the change in his hormones. But, God, nobody had ever told him just how much muscle he would develop.

He’d mentioned it to a friend. An offhand comment about how he could do things that he hadn’t thought anybody was able to do. At least, not outside of the shows he watched on TV.

Jackie quickly learned that, no, that wasn’t normal. In fact, he was about as far from normal as he could get.

He’d started putting things together after that. He noticed other things. Things that he had dismissed without really bothering to think too much about. It all clicked into place.

It was like he’d opened his third eye.

In the present, however, there’s blood running down his lips. It’s dripping down his chin and crashing onto the pavement the same way the rain had in the morning. Some of the blood must’ve gotten into his mouth, because there’s a metallic flavor on his tongue. Based on the pain coming from the center of his face, Jackie’s pretty sure that his nose is broken.

But that’s beside the point.

What he’s more concerned with at the moment is the man looming over him. He’s got no doubt that the man’s double Jackie’s entire body weight, and he stands nearly a foot above him.

It was a bank robbery. The radio frequency he’d been listening to said there were three suspects on the run with cash in their bags.

They were wrong. There had been a fourth man. A few moments after Jackie had taken out the third guy, he’d been hit by a car. A fucking car. He’d rolled over the top of it and landed on the concrete with a dull thud. He’s pretty sure his collarbone is broken. He can’t move his left arm without having pain shoot through his entire torso.

Despite the pain, he’d managed to throw in some good punches. There might be more blood gushing from his own nose than there is water in Niagara Falls, but he’s not the only one who’s beat up. One of the man’s eyes is swollen, and when he gives a big, lopsided grin, Jackie can see that one of his front teeth is chipped.

Even if he still has some fight left in him, though, he’s at a major disadvantage. Even with the adrenaline coursing through him, the pain is blinding. It’s worse than anything else he’s ever experienced, and that’s saying something.

His reflexes aren’t fast enough.

The man grabs him by the fabric of his jacket. He tugs him up until their faces are mere inches apart. The action causes his shoulders to jerk, and if Jackie wasn’t sure if his collarbone was broken before, he’s definitely sure now.

”Fuck,” The swear tumbles out of his lips, but he doesn’t let the tears stuck in his eyelashes fall.

He’s slammed into the brick wall behind him. The hand on his jacket rises to his throat. He can’t hold back the strangled yelp that escapes his lips. The noise is muffled slightly behind the man’s hand, which squeezes at Jackie’s neck like he’s made of Play-Doh.

One of Jackie’s gloved hands comes up to grab at the forearm pressing him into the wall. He digs his chewed fingernails into the skin he finds. He claws desperately in search of oxygen as the corners of his vision start getting fuzzy, but he’s too weak. The entire left side of his body is in agony, and a whimper is forced from his throat as the man’s grip on his neck tightens.

Just before his eyes slip shut, he hears his name. It’s like someone’s shouting for him, calling his name. The voice is surrounded by a layer of static, as though it were coming from a radio.

Everything goes black.

—

The next time Jackie opens his eyes, he’s on the ground.

He’s still in the alleyway. It’s darker than it had been before. The moon is blocked by the clouds above him, and rain falls from the sky. It’s not as bad as it had been before, but for all he knows the streets could start to flood any minute now. The man who hit Jackie with his car, as well as the three guys he was with, are gone.

_Goddamn it_.

He’s curled up on the concrete. He’s not sure how long it’s been raining for— or how long he’s been unconscious, for that matter— but the rain has already soaked through his jacket. The moment he tries to stand up, the pain in his torso returns. His whole body aches, but he forces his way through the fog of pain. Soon, he’s vertical.

His eyes have focused some since he first opened them a few minutes ago, but it’s still dark. Of all the abilities Jackie has, he doesn’t have night vision, and _fuck_ , that would’ve been pretty cool, wouldn’t it?

Jackie’s fingertips ghost over his nose, which is still very broken. He hisses softly as pain shoots through his face. There’s dried blood coating the bottom half of his face, which is gross, but it’s the least of his worries right now.

When he turns his head to the side, his eyes land on the brick wall he’d been pressed up against not too long ago. There’s graffiti painted onto the bricks, glistening in the rain. He doesn’t remember it being there when he was fighting the bank robbers, but he supposes it must have been.

His eyes follow the curve of each letter. He traces them in his head again and again as his brain attempts to comprehend the words and their meaning. Bold, red letters, similar to the color of the blood on his face, are accompanied by electric green accents.

They read: _Bring Him_.

—

It was a little after three in the morning when Jackie made it back to his apartment. An hour or so has passed since then. He doubts he’ll be getting any sleep tonight, what with the dull ache still washing over him.

Jackie’s sitting on his bed. His legs are folded up like a pretzel, and he’s got a blanket thrown over the lower half of his body. He would’ve preferred to drape the covers over his shoulders, but he can’t move his left arm without his collarbone flaring up in hot, white pain.

Thankfully, tomorrow’s Saturday, so he can spend the next few days recovering from any broken bones that he might’ve gotten. It’s going to hurt like hell for the next week, but, come Monday, he should be able to use his left arm again. If he uses enough painkillers, that is.

His face is illuminated by the laptop, which is on the bed in front of his folded legs. Besides the soft, golden glow coming in from the streetlamps outside, the laptop is the only source of light in his apartment. It’s like something out of an indie horror film.

Since he got settled on the bed with his computer a little under an hour ago, he’s been watching Youtube to pass the time. He has this playlist filled with clips of some of his favorite magicians. It’s a good distraction from the pain in his face and in his torso.

He comes back to these clips, every now and then.

As embarrassing as it might be, Jackie had a magic phase when he was younger. He bought decks of cards with his allowance money, and he even had those books that were supposed to teach little kids how to do basic tricks to impress their friends. He doesn’t remember impressing anybody with anything he learned from those books.

Granted, Jackie doesn’t remember actually learning anything from those books, either.

It was just a phase, anyway.

Jackie recognizes the magician in the clip he’s watching now. He’s only seen videos of them a few times before, but what he’s seen has been memorable.

They’ve got long, brown hair, which has a green glow to it under the stage-lights hanging above them. It’s tied back into a bun in this particular clip, though they’ve been known to perform with it down. Because their hair is pulled back, the golden hoop earrings they are wearing are visible.

They always wear this mask when they’re on stage. It’s white, and it has little cat ears at the top of it. The insides of the ears are bright green, the same color as the magician’s fingernails, and the four card suits are on the forehead of the mask.

Their lips are painted red, and if that doesn’t show how much confidence they have, then the platform boots on their feet sure as hell do.

Jackie’s halfway through the clip when he hears something. He’s tempted to brush it off, to convince himself that it’s just his neighbor, walking around upstairs with heavy footsteps, or that the noise is simply coming from the video he’s watching. He can’t ignore it, though. His intestines are tied up in knots. Something’s _wrong_. He can feel it.

The bed creaks when he stands up. A soft groan escapes his lips as the action causes his collarbone to flare up in pain again. But he can deal with pain.

Jackie’s standing at the side of his bed. He’s staring straight ahead with wide eyes. His bedroom door, which leads into the living room, is closed. He can still hear the noise coming from the other side. The closer he gets to the door, the more unsure he is of what the sound is.

His fingers, shaky as they are, wrap around the doorknob. He turns his wrist clockwise, and the door opens. He doesn’t know if he wants to see what’s on the other side, but he figures it’s too late to go back now. He pulls the door towards himself, slowly, and he peers into the darkness. His heart’s beating double as fast as it should be.

The moment the door slides open, the noise is gone. His heart doesn’t slow down any, nor does that feeling in his gut disappear. If anything, it only gets worse. It travels from his intestines all the way up to his throat, making sure to tamper with his lungs and his heart as it goes. He’s probably overreacting. No, he’s definitely overreacting. It’s late, it’s dark, and he hasn’t slept.

He’ll look around his apartment, on the off chance that he isn’t being paranoid, and then he’ll try and get some sleep. Sleep sounds nice right about now.

There’s no one behind the couch, and there isn’t anyone hiding under his desk. The silence isn’t doing anything to calm his nerves. His eyes flickers to the coat closet, which is on the wall beside the front door. He shuffles over to it, and the socks he’s wearing muffle his footsteps.

He’d been unable to take the socks off when he first got back to his apartment, what with the pain shooting through his upper body. They’d been soaked from the rain, and the feeling made his face scrunch together, but, thankfully, they’ve dried since he got home and slipped his shoes off.

Instead of slowly pulling the door open, like he had his bedroom door, he tugs it wide open in one, quick movement. Just like before, there’s no one there. He really is paranoid, isn’t he?

Jackie pushes the door until it clicks. His eyes flutter shut. There’s a frown tugging at the corners of his lips.

Lightning cracks the sky. For a second, the light beams in through the windows, and he gets a glimpse of the bathroom. When he first got back to his apartment, he’d gone to the bathroom to wash off as much of the dried blood as he could. He’d closed the door when he was done. He remembers that.

So why is the door open, now?

Thunder roars, and his lungs rumble with it.

Jackie realizes that his feet are leading him towards the bathroom a moment too late. He’s already pushing the door open when it clicks that he’s not going to be able to fight off whoever’s in his apartment. With the state his collarbone’s in, and the fact that he doesn’t have a weapon of any kind, he’s fucked.

He can’t breathe. Why can’t he breathe?

The bathroom is just as silent as the rest of his apartment. That uneasiness, though it never fully left him, creeps back into the forefront of his mind. He knows that he needs to stop panicking. That’s easier said than done, though, isn’t it?

He flips the light switch so the light above the mirror flickers on. He steps into the bathroom, and his eyes land on the shower curtain, which is closed. It’s like a car crash that he can’t tear his eyes away from.

His feet tap against the tile floor as he shuffles towards the shower. His right hand, shaking like a leaf trapped outside in the wind, raises to grab at the curtain as he nears it. This is going to be just like ripping off a band-aid. All he needs to do is get it over with. That’s what he’s telling himself, anyway.

Jackie tugs the shower curtain back before that little voice in his head can convince him not to.

After he pulls the shower curtain open, he stumbles backwards. There’s no one there, just like there was nobody hiding behind the couch or in the coat closet. This isn’t the first all-nighter Jackie’s pulled, so why is he going so crazy this time?

In his peripheral vision, he sees it. His head whips to the side so he can stare at the mirror, and at the thing he sees. It’s eyes meet his own. It looks like himself, but he knows he’s not smiling like his reflection is. His fist collides with the mirror, and the glass shatters. His reflection keeps grinning, keeps looking at Jackie with death in its gaze.

There’s red all over his hand. It’s running down his wrist and dripping onto the tile beneath his sock-clad feet. He doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at the mess on his arm, but when he looks back up to his reflection, the air is knocked out of his lungs. He backs up until the heels of his feet hit the wall behind him. He doesn’t look away from the mirror once, as though his reflection might disappear if he looked away.

The piece of glass, where Jackie’s right eye would be reflected, is gone. His eyes flicker down to his reflection’s mouth, still contorted into a too-wide grin, and then to his throat. His right hand, still dripping with red, is pressing the previously lost glass shard into his neck. His own eyes widen, and a sharp gasp falls from his lips. When he tries to move his hand from where it’s pressing the broken piece of glass into his throat, it won’t move.

His hand is shaking like it was when he was pulling back the shower curtain. Jackie can’t stop the tears from rolling down his cheeks when the glass cuts his hand and slices a small, red line into the thin skin of his throat. The grin on his reflection’s lips only grows wider when those big, fat tears fall off either side of his chin.

That _thing_ in the mirror isn’t him. It can’t be.

It all happens so fast. There’s a stinging pain in his neck. His vision goes blurry. He can hear the gasping breaths and the whimper that falls from his lips. And then, suddenly, all of it’s gone. All of it is no more than a distant memory.

The glass shard falls to the tile floor with a clatter. He can barely hear the soft noise it makes behind the ringing in his ears. His hand is just as shaky as it had been before. The blood on his throat gets smeared as he presses at the wound on his neck with the tips of his fingers. The cut goes from the side of his neck to the spot right next to his Adam’s apple. The cut isn’t too deep, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less concerning.

There’s blood. Lots of it.

He grabs the washcloth off of the sink in front of him and presses it to the wound. White cotton blends into red.

The next time he looks up at his reflection, Jackie’s eyes meet his own. There’s no longer a grin plastered onto his reflection’s lips. All he sees is the big, crocodile tears still rolling down his cheeks, and the red smeared all over his throat. Does he see himself in the mirror, or is it just that thing impersonating him? Every morning, when he gets out of the shower, is he the one looking back?

He backs up until he’s standing underneath the doorframe. The washcloth, now covered in his own blood, is still firmly pressed to the cut on his neck. He can’t tear his gaze away from the mirror. He’s analyzing the eyes looking back at his. He’s searching for anything to prove that he isn’t looking at his reflection, and that the thing he’s seeing is a separate entity altogether. He needs to prove to himself that he’s not being paranoid, that he isn’t losing his mind, because right now—

Right now Jackie doesn’t even know if the blue eyes he’s looking into are his own.

Except, now that he thinks about it— _really_ thinks about it— he does know. It’s something so simple, no more than a continuity error, because Jackie doesn’t _have_ blue eyes, does he? No. Jackie has his mother’s eyes, big and brown and much darker than the oceans he finds when he looks in the mirror. 

He continues staring into those blue eyes in front of him. He’s hasn’t stopped holding the washcloth to the cut on his neck, though he’s not pressing it to the wound as hard as he was a few moments ago. He takes a couple steps back, until he’s no longer standing in the bathroom.

Blood drips down his neck and stains the fabric of the shirt he’s wearing. Some of the red drips onto the wood floors beneath his socked feet. He lets out a soft groan, and, in an attempt to not step on any of the droplets of blood, he takes a big step backwards. He loses his balance. He realizes that he’s falling backwards, but by then it’s too late.

His shoulder slams into the floor. The pain in his collar bone is blinding. The tears in his eyes are making his vision blurry. A sharp cry is tugged from Jackie’s lips as tears fall down his cheeks and off his chin. The blood still hasn’t stopped rolling down his neck and getting onto the floor.

He blinks away the tears. His eyes are open so wide that, if the circumstances were different, it might seem comical. As it stands, however, Jackie doesn’t see any comedy from beyond the pain in his torso. From where he’s lying on the ground, he can’t see his reflection in the mirror. He can still feel those eyes watching him, though now it’s different. Now it feels as though there are eyes all around him, staring at him from every angle.

The lamp beside the couch flickers on. He almost doesn’t notice it at first. He cranes his neck around to look at the lamp. The moment his eyes land on the lamp, the ceiling light, which is hanging above him, turns on as well. Out of his peripheral vision, he can see the light in the kitchen do the same. Even the light in the coat closet, when he can see under the crack of the door, flickers to life.

Soon enough, all the lights in his apartment are on. It’s still so quiet. The only thing that Jackie can hear is his own gasping breaths, which fall from his lips as he whips his head from one direction to the other. The way he sees it, he was right. Something _is_ wrong. Jackie hates being right. It never does him any good.

Jackie watches, with unblinking eyes, as the sage green paint is runs down the walls. It puddles on the wood floor until all the paint is gone. The walls are no longer green. They look the same as they had before Jackie had painted them— white, colorless. The fabric of his couch blends together like watercolor. It dilutes until there’s no color left. The couch, which was once a soft, baby blue, is now a light gray.

Tears are still streaming down Jackie’s face. The tracks they leave burn his skin. His eyes are still wide open, and his gaze shifts from the walls to each of the pieces his furniture he owns, as the color bleeds from them like the wound on his neck.

He’d been distracted by the color leaving his apartment, but he realizes now that the lights have gotten brighter since they first turned on. His eyes start to strain at the intensity of the light. Keeping his eyes open is getting harder with every second that passes.

Jackie presses his right elbow into the wood floor beneath him in an attempt to prop himself up. As he moves, the rain gets louder. Pelts of rain slam into the closed windows, begging to come in. The pain in his collarbone, as well as the lights— which still seem to be getting brighter— cause his eyes to screw shut. Another sharp cry falls from his lips as he gets himself into an upright position.

It’s cold, suddenly. His apartment tends to get pretty chilly, especially when the weather gets like this, but this is new. Goosebumps rise along his arms and on the back of his neck. Something wet is running down his face. At first, he thinks it’s just more tears, but there’s too much for it to be so. He pries his eyes open. He’s still on the ground, like he had been before his eyes slipped shut. The only real difference is that now he’s outside.

The confusion, as well as the pelts of freezing rain falling onto him, are both good distractions from the throbbing pain in his collarbone. It’s be pitch black if it weren’t for those billboards lighting up the city. He’s not in Dublin anymore, that much is for sure. He doesn’t know of any place in Ireland where huge, electronic billboards hang on skyscrapers that surround the streets.

But if he’s not in Ireland, then where is he?

His hair is sopping wet, and he realizes a moment later that his clothes are getting drenched as well. Only, he’s not wearing the same t-shirt that he had on back at his apartment, nor are his feet clad in his mix-matched ankle socks. He’s wearing his red shoes, with the laces double-knotted, as well as his jacket. He even has his mask tied over his eyes.

With his teeth, he pulls the glove off of his right hand. His hand is still covered in his own blood, and his hand still stings from where the glass had sliced his palm.

Distantly, he can hear a car’s horn blaring. He twists his neck around in search of the source of the noise. To his left, there are headlights. He brings his now gloveless hand up to block the light from shining into his eyes. It occurs to Jackie, in that moment, that he’s in the middle of the road.

He stands up so fast his vision goes blurry. He limps towards the pavement. He narrowly misses getting hit by a car, and the person driving it yells at him to _stay out of the fucking road, dumbass_.

By the time both his feet are on the pavement, Jackie’s breathing erratically. He feels small, and it’s not because of all the skyscrapers he’s standing in the middle of. Everything starts to click together— the billboards, all varying in size and color, the skyscrapers that tower above him in all directions— he’s in New York City. Two minutes ago he was in his apartment, so how the fuck is he all the across the Atlantic?

He tilts his head upwards, and raindrops roll from his hair down to his chin. His eyes flicker from one billboard to the next. He turns his body counter-clockwise as he continues reading each screen. He’s searching for a reason as to why he’s here. Most of them are advertising a product of some sort, or they are showcasing another movie coming to theaters in the upcoming months.

There’s nothing that would hint as to how— or why— he’s standing in the center of Times Square.

He takes a step to the side, and someone bumps into his shoulder. His collarbone flares up in pain for what must be the thousandth time today, and a groan is ripped from his throat. The person who walked into him continues walking. It all happens so fast that Jackie doesn’t get a good look at their face.

The encounter probably only lasted for a few seconds, but to Jackie, it feels a lot longer than that.

The city is crowded, but it’s just as quiet as his apartment had been. People walk past him, and the bits of conversation that he’s able to overhear are nothing more than white noise. It’s a little above the people, however, that Jackie’s eyes are drawn to.

One of the billboards, which is advertising Coca-Cola, is malfunctioning. The screen flickers, and the logo, which had been centered, keeps glitching into the top right corner. The brand name, at the bottom of the billboard, has also glitched. Instead of the words Coca-Cola, the now read: _Bring Him_.

Jackie stares, incredulous, at the words. He tears his gaze away from the screen, and he twists his neck around to stare at the dozens of other billboards. With everything that’s happened to him in the last couple of hours alone, this can’t be a coincidence.

His eyes land on another billboard. This one is doing the same thing that the Coca-Cola ad had. The word Sephora, in white letters, occasionally glitches to the side, and the words _Bring Him_ replace it. Jackie stands there, completely still, as he watches as every other billboard in Times Square does the same.

No one else in the sea of people surrounding him seem to notice. No one looks up to see the words _Bring Him_ or see the way all the billboards are malfunctioning. Why the fuck isn’t anybody else seeing this?

One by one, every single billboard goes black.

—

Jackie’s alarm didn’t go off.

It’s sometime after eight in the morning when his eyes finally slip open. He doesn’t have enough time to take a shower, and he isn’t able to brush his teeth.

As he got dressed, he made himself a pot of coffee, though he’s going to have to drink his first cup as he walks to work. He spills a little bit onto the counter when he pours the liquid into his travel mug. He burns his tongue on the coffee as he rushes out the door.

His jacket is left on the kitchen table.

There’s rain falling from the sky. He stares up at the clouds, and the raindrops roll down his face and over the smile on his lips.

Jackie’s always loved the rain.

Huh.

Déjà vu.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated!!
> 
> \- Milo


End file.
